Trump accuses China of using trade to target U.S. election, threatens retaliation

Trump also warned that if China takes retaliatory action against United States farmers or industries, "we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately US$267 billion of additional imports".

"China, however, still refuses to change its practices - and indeed recently imposed new tariffs in an effort to hurt the United States economy", President Trump said Monday.

The US Trade Representative's office eliminated about 300 product categories from the proposed tariff list, along with some subsets of other categories, but administration officials said the total value of the revised list would still be "approximately $200 billion".

In announcing the USA tariffs against China on Monday, President Trump said China's trade practices, such as forcing US companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms, "plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy".

Trump also accused China of actively targeting the U.S. election on Tuesday, but offered no evidence to back up his allegation. In a White House statement, he accuses Beijing of having failed to change "numerous unfair policies and practices relating to United States technology and intellectual property - such as forcing United States companies to transfer technology to Chinese counterparts".

The duty will rise to 25 per cent in the new year, officials said.

China's yuan currency has weakened by about six percent against the USA dollar since mid-June, offsetting the 10 percent tariff rate by a considerable margin.

After a seven-week comment period, the administration announced that it had withdrawn several items from an earlier list of $200 billion in Chinese imports, including child-safety products such as bicycle helmets.

Smart watches and devices that use bluetooth wireless communications, the technology behind Apple's AirPods and other products that work with smartphones, will be excluded from the new tariff list.

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What impact will Trump's new tariffs on China have?
All three major USA indexes were lower, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq posting its biggest percentage loss since late July. The latest USA duties spared smart watches from Apple and Fitbit and other consumer products such as baby auto seats.

"This is the sixth or seventh time we talked about this particular round of tariffs", said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

"Once again, I urge China's leaders to take swift action to end their country's unfair trade practices", Trump said.

The result could be higher prices for American consumers, because most companies are expected to pass on the cost to their customers.

Oil prices rebounded from earlier losses as supply concerns outweighed assurances from Washington that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States can raise output fast enough to offset falling supplies from Iran and elsewhere. Start building new plants now.

But this is unlikely the end of the U.S.

According to an analysis by Bloomberg, the new tariffs will have an impact on Beijing, eroding 0.5 percentage point off China's 2018 GDP growth.

"On the Chinese side, Mr. Trump has burned a lot of political capital so it's hard to see how talks can resume if Mr. Trump goes ahead on the $200 billion", Freya Beamish, chief Asia economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.

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